


stars, stripes, and sleepless nights

by LiveLaughLovex



Series: our definition of perfect [18]
Category: Blue Bloods (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Future, F/M, Gen, Post-Season/Series 09
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-06
Updated: 2019-07-06
Packaged: 2020-06-23 14:57:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,650
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19703716
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LiveLaughLovex/pseuds/LiveLaughLovex
Summary: Eddie and Jamie celebrate their second son's first Fourth of July.





	stars, stripes, and sleepless nights

**Author's Note:**

> Happy belated Fourth of July, everybody. I hope you all had fun with whatever you spent these past few days doing. I'm sorry this is out late. In my defense, most people I know hardly even celebrated on Thursday, so I wasn't in the right headspace to write about it.

On the morning of her second son’s first Fourth of July, Eddie awoke to the sound of tiny feet dashing down the hall.

“Mama!” Flynn called insistently through the door, knocking several times and then trying his luck with the handle. “Mama, we have pancakes.”

Eddie grumbled into her pillow – she _had_ promised they’d have pancakes before heading over to her in-laws’, but she hadn’t expected her two-year-old to remember that – and rolled over onto her back. “Just a second, baby,” she called back. “Give Mama two minutes, and then we’ll make some pancakes.”

“Mama two minutes, then pancakes,” Flynn repeated.

“Good job, buddy,” she praised, kicking aside the covers and glaring playfully at her husband when he smirked at her. “I’ll be right out, okay?”

“You do know he has no concept of time, right?” Jamie stage-whispered, glancing into the cot next to the bed to ensure their younger son was still sleeping. When Stefan simply continued to snore quietly, his focus returned to her. “He’ll be kicking down the door in thirty seconds or less.”

“You could make pancakes with him,” Eddie suggested, flashing a smirk of her own.

Jamie held his hands up in surrender. “Hey, I offered to make them last night,” he reminded her. “He wasn’t having it. Apparently, it’s the sort of activity he only does with his mommy.”

“Don’t worry, babe,” Eddie teased, yanking a brush through her hair and quickly pulling it away from her face with a colorful scrunchie. “I’m sure Stefan will be a total Daddy’s Boy.”

“I hope so. I want someone to make pancakes with.” Jamie pushed aside the covers and climbed from bed when Stefan began fussing, reaching down into the bassinette and hefting their four-month-old into his arms. “C’mon, buddy. Let’s get some formula in you,” he murmured, exiting their room and heading for the stairs. He was greeted by their overexcited son, and Eddie couldn’t help but grin at the sound of the two talking as they made their way downstairs.

Eddie finished getting ready quickly, then made her way down to the kitchen. “Good morning, family,” she greeted cheerfully, pressing a kiss to the top of Stefan’s head and another to Jamie’s cheek as she passed them. “You ready to go with our pancakes, Mr. Flynn?” she questioned, scooping her hyper son into her arms and balancing him on her hip.

The little boy nodded eagerly. “Then we go to Pop’s,” he reminded her. 

“Yes, then we’ll go to Grandpa’s house and see your cousins,” she assured him. “You know what I was thinking? We should make some red and blue pancakes, too, for Fourth of July. What do you think of that idea? Sounds fun, huh?”

“Fun,” Flynn repeated eagerly, nodding his head against her shoulder.

“Okay,” she laughed, setting him back on the ground. “Let’s get everything ready, then. I think Daddy’s about to starve over there.”

It didn’t take long for them to mix and cook the pancakes, mostly because Eddie was able to distract her son with food coloring and sprinkles. She plated the end result, adding a bit of whipped cream atop each stack, then placed them on the counter.

“Fan have some?” Flynn asked hopefully, pointing to his little brother as the youngest Reagan boy continued gulping down his formula in the safety of his father’s arms.

“Stefan’s not old enough, baby,” Eddie reminded him apologetically. “Maybe next year we’ll try it out, okay?”

Flynn agreed easily enough, only nodding before returning his attention to the tiny pancakes Eddie had placed in front of him. “Nik at Pop’s?” he asked after a moment, picking up one of the smaller pieces his father had cut up for him and smearing both his face and hands with whipped cream in the process.

“Nicky will be at Grandpa’s,” Eddie promised.

“Baby?”

“Yes, she’s bringing the baby too.” Eddie still found herself blinking every time she said those words in relation to Nicky. Even six weeks after little Hallie Ann O’Donnell’s entrance into the world, it still felt a bit strange to realize that her niece was now also a mother. “You’ll be very gentle with your little cousin, won’t you? She can’t play with you just yet.”

“Baby no play,” he repeated seriously, stuffing the last bite of pancake into his mouth and moving to jump down from his seat.

“Careful, buddy,” Jamie warned, catching him before he was able to injure himself and carefully setting him back on the ground. “You can go play while Mama and I finish eating, okay?”

“I play, Daddy,” Flynn agreed, dashing off as fast as he could in the direction of the downstairs playroom.

“We’ll have two of those running around this time next year,” Eddie reminded him, gently chucking their youngest under his chin when he blinked up at her with serious blue eyes. “Can you do Mama a favor?” she asked the little boy playfully, adopting the tone she used only with her children. “Can you just stay this little forever and ever?”

Stefan grabbed onto a strand of her hair, moving it in the direction of his mouth. Jamie came to her rescue before their son was able to pull it out with his little fist. “Sorry, babe, but I think he is pretty good with the growing up thing.”

“Oh, well,” Eddie sighed. “It was worth a shot.”

-o-

Erin greeted them at the door of their childhood home, Hallie propped against her shoulder. The newest Reagan was clad in a white onesie that proclaimed in glittery letters that it was her first Fourth of July. A tutu featuring all three colors of the flag and a matching headband completed the look.

“Nicky’s taking a nap upstairs,” she explained quietly. “Aidan’s with her. I don’t think they’ve gotten more than two hours in a night since bringing this little sunshine home.”

“Can I help with anything?” Eddie murmured, running a hand up and down Stefan’s back.

“No, it’s fine,” Erin assured her. “You brought the salads by yesterday, and dessert’s been put in the fridge already. All that’s left is the meat, and Dad and Danny are arguing over that in the backyard.”

“Will a holiday barbeque ever be complete without your male relatives disagreeing over the best way to cook the meat?” Eddie asked rhetorically, following Erin into the kitchen and smiling gratefully at Jamie when he dropped off the baby’s carrier and diaper bag before heading outside with Flynn to join in on the fun.

“I honestly don’t think it’ll happen,” Erin replied, placing Hallie in her bassinette and then turning to face her sister-in-law. “Maybe the next generation will figure something out.”

“Please,” Eddie scoffed amusedly. “You have _met_ my eldest son, haven’t you?”

“You’re right,” Erin sighed, shaking her head with a smile. “That kid’s never going to stand down on anything.”

“Mom, you could’ve told me everyone was here,” Nicky began, making her way down the stairs. “I didn’t mean to sleep through it.”

“It’s only eleven o’clock, kiddo,” Erin assured her. “Jack, Madi, and Sean aren’t even here. You could’ve kept sleeping.”

“I don’t know if my body knows how to sleep for more than five hours at a time anymore,” Nicky admitted, smiling down at Hallie. “She’s asleep.”

“She is,” Erin agreed. “Maybe she’ll stay that way for long enough that you can go back up and get another few hours.” She nodded to the staircase, and, begrudgingly, her daughter did as told.

“How’re things going for them?” Eddie asked once her niece had vanished back into the spare bedroom.

Erin shrugged. “Aidan rarely looks like he’s going to do anything other than pass out when he walks into the office these days, but he hasn’t lost a case yet either, so I’m not in a position to judge.”

“Poor guy,” Eddie laughed, bouncing Stefan in her arms. “I feel for him, though. Babies are exhausting little creatures.”

“Yes,” Erin sighed, smiling as she remembered her daughter’s infancy, “but they’re amazing.”

“They are,” Eddie agreed. “So amazing.”

-o-

The Macy fireworks show was just as much tradition for the newer generation of Reagans as the BBQ was on the Fourth of July. Eddie worried at first that they’d have to take Stefan back to the car or the house, as Flynn hadn’t particularly enjoyed his first fireworks show when only two months younger than his brother, but that wasn’t the case. If anything, Stefan was amazed and entranced by the pretty lights, so much so that he didn’t even seem to notice the sounds that accompanied them. They owed that in no small part to the baby-sized soundproof headphones Erin had managed to produce for each of the little ones.

Flynn passed out the very second they strapped him back into his car seat. Stefan stayed awake in his carrier for a while, but he too gave in to his sleepiness before they reached their house. It was quite the effort, getting two boys and all their travel necessities out of a car and into the house, but they had been doing it long enough at that point that they were able to manage without too many issues.

“Okay, sweet pea,” Eddie murmured, carefully placing Stefan in his bassinette, “you have a good sleep.”

“Hey,” Jamie murmured, coming up behind her and pressing a kiss to the side of her head. “Well, Flynn’s down for the count. Didn’t even try to talk me into one bedtime story, let alone four.”

“Let’s hope they’ll sleep well tonight,” Eddie replied softly, smiling when Stefan’s pacifier slipped from his mouth.

“You know they’ll be up at six or before, don’t you?”

“Oh, please,” Eddie scoffed quietly, turning to beam at him, “you wouldn’t have it any other way.”

“No, I wouldn’t,” Jamie agreed without hesitation, his focus returning to their youngest son. “I really, really wouldn’t.”

**Author's Note:**

> I decided to write this instead of something for Flynn's first Fourth of July, because I've written everything else about his first time experiencing things, or Eddie and Jamie's first time experiencing it as parents, and then I always find myself going, "Oh yeah, they have three other kids in this series." So, while I'll most likely go back and write tons of stuff that takes place prior to this - I already have a title for Stefan's birth story, so I've kind of already dedicated myself to writing it - I just wanted to have a small bit of this series where Flynn's no longer their only child.


End file.
